Chapter 27
Maya left for the airport, and I hung out in the locker room. I didn”t want to go to my Denver apartment, and there was no way I could go home to the house I thought of as ours. Not without her tonight.
I sat on an empty bench in the empty locker room, feeling pretty damn empty.
”What”s up, dog?” Finn tapped the side of a locker with his fist as he came into the room. ”Maya still here?”
I shook my head. ”She had to get back.”
”I”m guessing the pepper shit wasn”t something you”re into?” Finn nodded knowingly. ”I was worried about that.”
”Jackass,” I said with a chuckle. ”It”s the code we use when we need to have a serious conversation about the rules of us.”
”Well, fuck,” Finn said, dropping to sit on the bench across from me. ”That makes me feel like a grade-A jackass. And it sounds way less fun than what I was thinking.”
”I think she”s pulling away from me,” I said. ”I told her I”m in love with her, and she”s pulling away.”
Finn let out a long whistle. ”I”m firmly against telling anyone you”re in love with them. Best to keep that shit locked tight, if you ask me.”
”Kid, that”s why you”re single.” Coach strode into the locker room, his hands on his hips. He looked right at me but jerked his thumb toward Finn. ”Don”t listen to people who don”t know what it”s like to make a woman happy.”
”I know what it”s like,” Finn said in defense.
”What”s it like then, Romeo?” Coach asked.
Then he waited for Finn to come up with an answer we all knew would be bullshit.
”I think I”ll just sit here and let you two talk,” Finn said, stretching out on the bench to stare at the fluorescent lights above us, his hands linked behind his head.
”Good call,” Coach said. Then he pointed at me. ”What”d you do?”
”What makes you think I did anything?” I asked, eyebrows drawing together. Now, it was my turn to be on the defensive.
”Given you”re the one pouting in the locker room while everyone else is out celebrating the win, I”d say you did something. Tell me I”m wrong.” Coach didn”t sit. Then again, he never sat. He leaned against the lockers, which was about as relaxed as I”d ever seen him, really. Like he was all settled in and ready for a good story.
”I told my wife that I”m in love with her,” I said, and if that was wrong, then I didn”t know how to be right.
Coach pursed his lips, nodded. ”What”d she say to that?”
”She flew out here to ask me if I meant it and to find out how that changed things.” I cleared my throat. ”We”d agreed when we got married in Vegas to leave love out of it. Agreed that things would be easier if we kept love out of it.”
I told him all of it, about how we”d accidentally gotten married. The rules of the marriage and how it”d gone so well until now.
”Well, that”s stupid,” Coach said, dismissive as fuck. ”You”re a goddamned idiot, but you did something right because she came halfway across the country to figure it out with you.”
”I fucked up because it was easy, until I opened my mouth and asked for a new game plan,” I said.
”Marriage is easy?” Coach asked. ”That”s what you thought?”
The question sounded rhetorical, but he said nothing more, and Finn said nothing, so I said?—
”Yes?” It was a kind of statement and a question.
”Kid, marriage is like a football career.” Coach narrowed his eyes at me and pointed his finger. ”You think a football career that starts easy stays easy?” He didn”t wait for an answer. ”Fuck no, it doesn”t. Work. A person can have all the talent in the world and with that natural ability, they cruise through high school and become a champion. Get a scholarship to college. But then the actual work will have to start, and you know it.”
Damn, he was getting worked up and red in the face.
”Did you cruise your way into professional football? Into getting drafted, traded four fucking times, before I brought you here? Or did you have to work for it?” At that point, he was yelling.
He waited, so I guessed it was my turn to talk again. ”I worked for it.”
Worked my ass off through the grief of losing my family, through broken ribs and sprained ankles.
”Exactly, you worked for it. Nobody handed you this career. Nobody hands you a good marriage. Work for it.”
I”d heard Coach compare football to almost everything, but I”d never heard his take on football and marriage before.
”You should listen to him,” Finn said. ”His wife seems pretty happy.”
”Because when she has a rough patch and questions shit—and don”t think that”s never happened—I try harder. I”m her husband. That”s my goddamned job.”
”I need to try harder?” I asked, to clarify that I understood exactly what he was going for with this lecture.
”Yes, kid, you need to try harder. You say you love her, but how did you show her? Seems to me she flew all the way here tonight to talk to you—my guess is she”s in love with you, too, because if you didn”t matter to her, she would”ve picked up the goddamned phone and kept it simple. Sent you a text. A woman doesn”t fly across the country for a thirty-minute conversation unless she”s pissed as hell, or she”s in love with you.” He turned to Finn. ”Was she pissed as hell?”
He shook his head. ”Not that I saw.”
”Well, you”d know. That one”s easy to spot,” Coach retorted.
”How do you show someone you love them when you”re thousands of miles away?” I asked, genuinely curious.
”How the fuck do I know?” Coach asked. ”But you”re in the big leagues now, kid. That means you”ve got to come up with an MVP husband performance. Something she”ll understand, and something that”s from your goddamned heart. A sweeping victory declaration of how you”re ready to fight for the two of you.”
”I could call a press conference,” I said.
Coach shook his head. ”Too impersonal.”
”I could take out a billboard in the next town she”s in.” I was grasping at straws but trying to figure this out. ”And the next after that.”
Coach tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder. ”That”s better, but does it have any special significance for you and her?”
I shook my head. ”No.”
Finn was sitting now with a shit-eating grin on his face. He raised his hand like we were in a fifth-grade classroom and not in a professional football locker room.
”Better be good,” Coach grumbled.
”You should make a viral dance on social media,” Finn said, dropping his hand. ”Call it the Slaya.”
”It”s good that you know how to catch a ball,” Coach said, shaking his head.
”Actually…” Now, I was sitting taller. ”The whole reason we ended up staying married is because it got posted on social media. Finn might be onto something.”
”See?” Finn said. ”I”m more than a pretty face who catches footballs.”
”What if I sang one of her songs back to her?” I asked.
”What if you wrote her a song?” Finn countered.
”I don”t write songs,” I said. ”But… I guess I could try?”
Or… actually, I knew just what to do. I wouldn”t win a Grammy or anything, but maybe it”d be enough to make my point.
”We need to get T.J. and Darius looped in,” I said. ”They”re into creative shit.”
”They love this stuff,” Finn agreed.
”You two have it under control.” Coach started toward the exit with a backward wave. ”Don”t fuck it up.” Then he turned on his heel. ”Your contract got renewed. Came to tell you. Elliott has details. Don”t fuck it up, either. Don”t fuck anything up.”